


A continuation

by Inumage



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Fantasy High
Genre: M/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28057998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inumage/pseuds/Inumage
Summary: Mutual pining, Fabian falls in love first. They’re all sophmores in college, so that’s when Pok says that he really got his glo-up. I’m.idk man this is a melting pot of all the ideas I saw on tumblr with Fabian falling in love first, and him acknowledging that riz was his best friend just as riz starts to realize his own feelings.
Relationships: Riz Gukgak/Fabian Aramais Seacaster
Comments: 4
Kudos: 86





	A continuation

The thing about Riz Gukgak was that he was a mess and that he was Fabian’s best friend. Not like Fabian would ever admit that out loud, though. There was enough second-hand embarrassment to go around when watching Riz bounce around on his sixth cup of coffee in the library, furiously scrabbling up a shelf to get a book because “librarians take too long and there’s no ladders, also I always put the books back Fabian”. Fabian wouldn’t even be in the library in the first place if it weren’t for the fact that it became a kind of unspoken rule that the party would walk home together from the university after Gorgug was kidnapped and replaced with a yuan-ti for a full hour before they noticed.

The library skylight poured down golden onto the table where Adaine and Kristen sat. Adaine, despite being a week ahead of her classes, still insisted on studying every day and Kristen was deep into a crisp looking brown text titled “Metaphysics: The BIG questions”.

“Hey guys- where’s the Ball?” asked Fabian as he slid into a chair.

“He mentioned something about a book that the rogue professor hid behind a bunch of traps? He said he’d be back in thirty,” replied Adaine, barely glancing up from her colour coded binder. She twirled the fountain pen in her hand.

“Bet he’ll make it in twenty.” snickered Kristen, who was struggling to do the same thing with her multicolour ballpoint.

“I’m game. Seventeen, five gold,” Adaine replied, holding out a hand.

“Kristen, Adaine is an oracle.” Fabian looked at Kristen, who had already taken Adaine’s hand.

“I can still be right!” Kristen grinned.

“And we don’t need money, not after that Beholder fight- I would know, I know what large sums of money look like,” said Fabian.

“It’s about the principle of it. Like, if I’m right, maybe I’ll be the oracle,” said Kristen.

“If I could give you all of the stuff I have to do, I would Kristen.” sighed Adaine. The two then descended into a playful argument of the responsibility of people and service, coursework forgotten in front of them. Fabian felt a great need to leave after hearing the words “fiscal responsibility” and slinked away with a stealth score that The Ball would probably impressed by[2](not that he was thinking about how to impress The Ball).

He briefly debated going back to the table before shuddering at the words again. It wasn’t like it was bad, more like that some of his party were more about thinking and studying while he was more of the stylistic flair they sometimes needed. But it would be nice to have some of their skills too, like how good The Ball was at investigating what happened just by tasting things. All Fabian could do was hit and look excellent while doing so, which wasn’t so bad. And sometimes cast magic, but he wasn’t as good as Fig or Adaine or Kristen.

He should try to find The Ball. Fabian had a least twenty minutes before Fig and Gorgug finished their band practice, and it wasn’t like he was going to do his homework. He knelt down between the library book shelves. It was dusty and pretty gross, but that’s what The Ball would do. He had no idea what to do next. Maybe taste the carpet? But all the grit and dirt- and the last time he licked something while investigating he got sick for a week.

There was a muffled thump from somewhere nearby, making Fabian jump.

The thumping continued, like someone was dropping something very heavy multiple times. Fabian followed the sound cautiously, his hand on the hilt of his rapier.

As he turned around the corner, he saw The Ball. He was furiously grabbing elaborately embroidered tomes out of the shelves and dropping them onto the ground, keeping his gaze upwards.

“The Ball…?”

The Ball spun around, arquebus pointing straight at Fabian.

“Oh. Fabian! Hey,” Riz placed his weapon back onto his belt, then continued to shove books onto the library carpet. “Be careful, the blue square on the carpet is trapped. Some kind of paralysis spell.”

Fabian glanced down. The blue square seemed to be just like all the other ones.

“So… what’re you doing?” Fabian started, carefully stepping over the square.

“There’s something on the top of the shelf, and there’s a timer that’s counting down. I just need to climb up there,” said The Ball.

“Do you need help?” Fabian asked. He looked up at the bookshelf and couldn’t see anything except near-empty shelves.

Riz stopped pulling out the books. “I think if I got on top of you I could reach-“ he started to climb up Fabian, his claws digging into his jacket. Fabian tried to hold still. They’ve gone through this before, since they all lived in a medium humanoid sized house and Riz once hit his head on the cabinet from jumping on the counter and slipping. The Ball still hadn’t hit his growth spurt and was barely above 4 and a half feet tall, so it took him a bit of effort. Fabian felt oddly proud that he towered over The Ball, in a weird way. Nope, definitely not a weird way. It’s just that he liked the feeling of being tall.

The Ball started rifling through the books on the shelf before pulling out a red slab of something shiny with the same thickness as most of the other books. He started turning it over in his hands, then hummed triumphantly to himself and pressed his fingers into the slab at an exact configuration. It gave out a quiet hiss of released pressure and split open, revealing a button in the middle with a bright yellow smiley face on it that said “Press me!”

“That is definitely a trap, right?” said Fabian. He had to strain his neck up a bit to look, but from what he heard from The Ball complaining about his professor it seemed like it would be a continuation of his M.O of messing with first years.

“…There’s ten seconds left on the timer,” said The Ball, “I think I’ve got to.” He scrunched up his face in that weirdly adorable way when he was thinking really hard. “Maybe draw your sword out?”

Fabian nodded, taking out Flandrangor. There was a beat of silence.

“Did you press it The Ball?” said Fabian. “Nothing’s happening.”

“The timer just reset.” The Ball was staring really, really hard at the sleek watch on his wrist[3].(Fabian had gotten it for him Christmas during the sophomore year of their high school. It comforted Fabian to see it ride up The Ball’s wrist, sometimes. Like seeing the glint of cheap ass metal that has some parts rusted and worn off but the letters BE FRIE still clearly written on it.) “The timer Professor Agyle put on here just reset,” The Ball repeated. He turned the slab around again, considering every angle before furrowing his brows.

“Was that supposed to happen?” Fabian ran his fingers around the hilt of Frandrangor nervously. The anticipation of something appearing was still in the forefront of his mind.

The Ball looked up, then glanced back down. “Maybe we’re missing something…” he muttered, then started to rifle through the bookshelf again.

“I think that would be very unlikely, The Ball. You’re great at investigating,” Fabian winked, then felt heat rise to his cheeks. Embarrassing! Not cool!

“Thanks for the bardic inspiration,” The Ball was pushing the back of the bookshelves with his head wedged in, so he probably didn’t see that.

“Anyways, how does the timer work? Does it like start immediately after class or-“

The Ball poked his head back out. “No, it’s more like once you’ve found the area and done some specific actions it’ll start so you know you’re on the right track.” He glanced down at his watch again, then grabbed the slab to press the button again. “Now it’s a timer for 30 seconds? Can you just keep pressing this button every 30 Fabian? Tell me if anything changes on it.”

“Sure thing.” Fabian grabbed the slab. It was pretty light, as far as weird slabs went, and glowed with a faint white light. The button grinned up at him. “Wait, am I even allowed to help?”

The Ball was back to looking at the shelves. “Well, it’s not like he said anything about party members helping you,” he shrugged.

Fabian kept pressing the button, watching The Ball as he bounced off ideas on him about what he could be doing next before resolving himself to run through all the pages of the dropped books. Eventually they went through the entire section, before The Ball found a slight indent in the back of the bookshelf. But even after casting detect magic and finding hints of conjuration and abjuration [4] (presumably to prevent the location from being scryed upon) they didn’t make any progress.

“I just. Can’t figure it out! What is Agyle trying to lead us to?” The Ball ran a hand through his hair, messing it up[5](Fabian knew that Riz spent a scant 2 minutes just to get his hair presentable, because Fabian wasn’t allowed to go into the bathroom for his 20 minute morning routine until Riz and Gorgug were done)

Fabian look at him, dishevelled and frustrated and a little bit manic, and thought to himself that Riz looked kind of amazing.

“Fabain- give me the button! Fabian did you press it?” The Ball yanked the slab out of Fabian’s hand, pulling him from his revelation that his best friend might be attractive to him.[6]()

Fabian looked down at The Ball, who was frantically trying to find the exact configuration again. “Maybe we should… just see what happens?”

The Ball paused, then groaned. “Fuck! It’s always those dumb simple solutions. And in the textbook he’s said so many times not to overthink puzzles.” He pulled up his watch. “Five seconds.”

Fabian nodded, unsheathing Frandrangor again. Riz grabbed his arquebus out of its holster.

“Four… three… two… one.”

A blast of glittery air shot out of the shelf, barely missing The Ball’s head as he sidestepped it reflexively. Shiny confetti littered the ground. The slab floated up, folding itself inwards impossibly until it became the same size as the indentation in the shelf they found, placing it neatly inside with a quiet click.

The small panel slid up, a small piece of paper slowly feeding itself through. The Ball and Fabian stared at it in quiet wonderment before it slid out into the air.

The Ball snatched it before Fabian could react.

“Congratulations! You’ve finished in 20 minutes,” The Ball read out. “For fuck’s sake, Professor Agyle.”

Fabian grinned. “So what’s that? Good time?” He tried reaching for the paper before the Ball pulled it away.

“This was extra credit,” replied The Ball.

“Ugh. That much work for what? 2%?” Fabian whined.

The Ball flushed a pretty shade of emerald green. “Well, yeah? I mean I don’t need it, but it’s a good buffer if I need more time in my healing classes.” He stuffed the paper into his briefcase of holding, a worn, battered old thing that area around the letters T.B. was starting to come off.[6] (Fabian tried replacing it, once. But The Ball insisted that it still did its purpose and even then if he threw it away, what if he needed it at a later time? Fabian decided that he didn’t want to press it, so he bought a portable hole handkerchief instead, emblazoned with the letters R.G in a lurid red that CandleNights. The group had secret santa, so Fabian was sure that the sticky sentimentality wouldn’t be found out since the whole point is _secret_ santa)[7] (Riz found out who everyone had for secret santa- even if he wasn’t going to continue being a detective in the noir sense, he still had enough insight and knew everyone in the group enough to figure out that Fabian got it for him. The hankerchief was folded up into a pocket square in his jacket in case of emergencies. Riz tries not to think about how it’s over his heart.)

“Are Gorgug and Fig here yet? I’m tired of looking at all these books in the library,” The Ball said as he started carefully putting books back on the shelf.

Fabian leaned against a bookshelf. “Nope. Still got until 5 until band practice ends.” He watched for a moment, then sighed and bent down to help The Ball. It was a running joke with the group home about how Fabian was kind of incompetent at chores after having a maid- but it did make him feel a bit useless so now it’s a habit that whenever Fabian sees someone doing chores he goes to help.

After finishing the bookshelf by working in tandem, they walked back to the table where Adaine and Kristen seemed to have gone back to doing their respective studies but still glancing at their crystals, Kristen occasionally glancing at Adaine to grin at her.

“Hey guys,” whispered The Ball as he slipped into Fabian’s seat[7](Fabian’s letterman jacket for Darkmouth was on it, and his backpack was next to it. So. Fabian’s seat.). “What’d I miss?”

“Fabian, you were supposed to stop pressing the button ages ago,” Adaine grumbled as she rifled through her wallet to pass Kristen five gold.

“I think you did an excellent job Fabian!” Kristen beamed at both of them.

“Lucky,” stage-whispered Adaine behind a hand to The Ball.

“I heard that!” Kristen smiled, then looked down at her papers scattered around the desk. “Religious History is fun, but Cassandra damn it there’s just so much stuff to remember. When Fig and Gorgug come I’m going to ask them to write a rhyme on all of these dates or something.”

“Like a mnemonic?” someone piped up.

“Gorgug!” cheered Kristen. “Fig! Would you guys write a- memeonic?- for me to help me pass my Religious History midterm?”

“Yeah- of course-“ Gorgug started before Fig slapped a hand over his mouth.

“How much money you got?” Fig grinned.

“Uh… five gold?” Kristen flipped the pencil in her hand.

“Haha! Yes. Money first.” Fig made grabby hands at the gold.

“Fig, it doesn’t really matter-“

“Gorgug. Gorgug. Listen. It’s the principle of it. If you’re good at something, never do it for free. And we are AMAZING at making music,” said Fig, quickly pocketing the gold.

“We should get going right? Like I feel we’ve spent enough time in this library.” interrupted Fabian.

“We’ll get started on the mnemonic first thing back Kristen!” grinned Fig as she saluted her.

The group filed out of the library, Kristen, Fig, Gorgug, and Adaine climbing into the Hangvan and Fabian and the Ball getting on the Hangman.[8](They’ve never really talked about this particular arrangement. The Hangman used to complain loudly about The Ball, but now seems to be almost resigned to it.) Fabian resolutely ignored the sensation of The Ball’s arms wrapping around his middle and put on his helmet.

 _“Hello Master. Back to the house?”_ The Hangman’s voice echoed in Fabian’s head.

_“Yes Hangman. Thank you very much.”_

_“I see that The Ball is riding with you again.”_

_  
“Okay, I know that you don’t like him really much but-“_

“ _Yes, I know,”_ interrupted the Hangman “ _You guys have a_ thing _.”_

“What do you mean by that?”

“Fabian? Are you okay?” yelled The Ball over the roar of the Hangman.

Fabian cursed internally. “I’m fine. The Hangman just said something weird.”

The Ball laughed. “Yeah, he does that a lot right? Remember first year when you yelled at him about not talking about women that way?”

“Oh, I remember. Maybe it was Johnny Spells being a bad influence on him or something?”

_“Master, as long as you’re happy I will approve of whomever to ride alongside you.”_

“That guy was such a jerk! And you thought he was so cool back then,” Riz laughed. Fabian suddenly became aware of how hard he was smiling. _“Thank you, Hangman. I appreciate that.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this lying around for a while, so I'm just going to post this. Unless I get a bolt of inspiration (given or otherwise) this'll probably stay a one-shot.


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